So my post today is going to be a little bit of me ranting due to the fact that I am a bit upset about the testing required for my classes and the set up that we have in our school.
As a CTE teacher the State mandates my testing through a website that administers a State approved skills test to see the level of understanding of the students. That in and of itself is fine, but they require an 80% to pass and the students can only take it once. There is only a pass or fail and 80% or more passes and a 79% or under fails. I started testing this morning with my first class and they all failed, not one passed the test. The highest student score was 76%. It is a test that is difficult, I don't believe that anybody in the State office could get 80% on it. I know I couldn't.
My first class this morning was Business Web Design. I've been making websites for the past 15 years and I still need to have my books and cheat sheets by me when I develop one, and these kids who have no background, other than the last 70 plus days of having information crammed down their throats are supposed to pass the test with an 80% or better. If you ask me that is ludicrous. A person wanting to get into finance as a financial adviser by securing his licensing only has to score a 70% to be deemed perfectly competent to start working with the public and managing money and investments.
I believe that this testing requirement along with many other aspects of public education which I won't get into here, are designed to set these kids up to fail.
Then to top it all off, the test takes 90 minutes to take and class is only 60 minutes in length. Do you see a problem here? They don't have enough time to complete the test, and if they stay to complete it, then they are behind in their next class. If it is before lunch, then they don't get a lunch because lunch is only 30 minutes. If they have the last class then they have to stay after school for an additional half hour to finish. I am sorry, but these kids aren't going to do that, and I don't blame them. I wouldn't.
I had half of my class get up and leave this morning because they are on the basketball team and they needed to leave for a game, so each one of them failed because they couldn't complete it and they can't go back and retake it, or pick up where they left off.
The other problem is that my class is one of two computer labs here at the school, so I am limited to when I can test because my class has to be used for benchmark testing for State and Federal requirements. That means that I am pushed out of my class and put in a little room with a few computers (not sufficient for my whole class) so that they can use my computers. Half the time I can't do anything and I lose several days of instruction because there are no desks and the computers are inadequate for our needs. But I am supposed to sit there and be happy about it.
I think that I am done complaining.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
The Need for a Role Model
The kids at the school that I teach at are predominately Hispanic and poor. The town is small and there is absolutely nothing there. The majority of the jobs are in the casinos across the border in Nevada, so that is were they work and their families work there and they feel that is where they will work when they graduate.
Education is not a real focus in this community. The Principal is trying to change that, as have some of the teachers, but like I mentioned in my previous post, teachers don't stick around for longer than a year. This year alone the school had 7 new teachers in a staff of 15 (by the way that is complete staff, not just teachers). There are a couple of teachers that have been there forever, but the majority are either brand new teachers or in their second or third year. That means that these kids have never had any consistency in their education since starting at the school in seventh grade. That's right we teach from seventh to twelfth grade, which I didn't know at the time that I decided to take the job. I thought that I would only be teaching High School, not Junior High as well. Anyway, back to the point that I was trying to make.
These kids are so programmed to accept that nobody cares that they don't even bother learning the teacher's names. Any female is call "Miss" and any male is called "Mister". I feel like Happy Gilmore when he would visit his Grandmother in the nursing home and the old lady would always be saying "Mister, Mister". I hear stories from the other teachers of general disrespect and outright defiance in the classroom, and I am appalled. I don't see any of it in my classes. The same students that they have severe problems with are completely courteous to me. I am not saying that they are perfect angels by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time they don't disrespect me to my face and tell me to go do something to myself that is both physically and anatomically impossible, like they tell other teachers.
I would like to say that they just respect me, but I think for the most part they fear me, which creates a level of respect that is evident to everyone around.
An example of this just happened yesterday in the lunch room. I have tray duty this week, which is making sure that the students don't throw away their little foam trays, but rather stack them up nice and neat on the table next to the trash cans. I understand that this sounds a little asinine, but the school requires it so we enforce it. Anyway, I have this duty this week, which I can't stand, but I do it. A teacher came up to me and was talking to me (now this particular teacher has an over abundance of the aforementioned behavioral problems directed to him on a daily basis), when one of the students came and threw his tray on the stack and didn't make it look nice and neat. I pointed to him, then to the tray and made a turning sign with my hands until he came back and did it without complaining. This teacher was blown away that all I had to do was point and make a gesture and it was complied with. I am a very intolerant and non-politically correct teacher. I say what I am feeling and I let the students know when they've passed the line.
For example a few weeks ago I was instructing my 7th graders on a website that we have to start using in class when they started getting out of hand. I reminded them several times of my expectation, but they would immediately go right back to not listening. There were three in particular in the corner of the room that were causing the majority of the problems and I stopped and told them that I had enough and that if they didn't stop we were going to have a problem. Well one laughed as if I was joking, and I lost it. Directing my entire focus on him I started walking towards him asking if he thought that I was joking. I tried to get to him, but I was stopped by a desk that was blocking my path, which gave me enough time to stop myself from wanting to pick him up and throw him physically out the door. I stopped and told him that he was lucky that the desk was blocking me because I was going to hurt him. He got scared along with the rest of the class. They were perfect angels for the rest of the period. That night we had parent/teacher conferences and two of the three boys came with their parents. One looked as if he was going to cry when he sat down in front of me. He didn't know what I was going to say to his parents. I just looked at him in the eyes and said, "we had some problems today, didn't we?" He nodded in agreeance, and I responded, "but we aren't going to have something like that happen again, right?" And he said "no". Once that was over I turned to the parents and said, we have no problems now. And we haven't had any since.
I just feel that some of these kids just need to be told that enough is enough. They need someone who believes in them enough to expect them to be able to comprehend that their actions bring consequences.
Teaching is a difficult and thankless job. All of us have been in the role of the student, but not that many of us have been in the role of a teacher. This little adventure/mission that I am on is an eye opener for sure. It is interesting. I can't say that I yet feel a sense of accomplishment, but I can say that I am making progress. I am not only teaching my students, but some of the other teachers and paras come in and sit in my classes and take notes and learn from me as well.
I encourage everyone to reach out to a teacher and say thank you. It might just make their day.
Education is not a real focus in this community. The Principal is trying to change that, as have some of the teachers, but like I mentioned in my previous post, teachers don't stick around for longer than a year. This year alone the school had 7 new teachers in a staff of 15 (by the way that is complete staff, not just teachers). There are a couple of teachers that have been there forever, but the majority are either brand new teachers or in their second or third year. That means that these kids have never had any consistency in their education since starting at the school in seventh grade. That's right we teach from seventh to twelfth grade, which I didn't know at the time that I decided to take the job. I thought that I would only be teaching High School, not Junior High as well. Anyway, back to the point that I was trying to make.
These kids are so programmed to accept that nobody cares that they don't even bother learning the teacher's names. Any female is call "Miss" and any male is called "Mister". I feel like Happy Gilmore when he would visit his Grandmother in the nursing home and the old lady would always be saying "Mister, Mister". I hear stories from the other teachers of general disrespect and outright defiance in the classroom, and I am appalled. I don't see any of it in my classes. The same students that they have severe problems with are completely courteous to me. I am not saying that they are perfect angels by any stretch of the imagination, but at the same time they don't disrespect me to my face and tell me to go do something to myself that is both physically and anatomically impossible, like they tell other teachers.
I would like to say that they just respect me, but I think for the most part they fear me, which creates a level of respect that is evident to everyone around.
An example of this just happened yesterday in the lunch room. I have tray duty this week, which is making sure that the students don't throw away their little foam trays, but rather stack them up nice and neat on the table next to the trash cans. I understand that this sounds a little asinine, but the school requires it so we enforce it. Anyway, I have this duty this week, which I can't stand, but I do it. A teacher came up to me and was talking to me (now this particular teacher has an over abundance of the aforementioned behavioral problems directed to him on a daily basis), when one of the students came and threw his tray on the stack and didn't make it look nice and neat. I pointed to him, then to the tray and made a turning sign with my hands until he came back and did it without complaining. This teacher was blown away that all I had to do was point and make a gesture and it was complied with. I am a very intolerant and non-politically correct teacher. I say what I am feeling and I let the students know when they've passed the line.
For example a few weeks ago I was instructing my 7th graders on a website that we have to start using in class when they started getting out of hand. I reminded them several times of my expectation, but they would immediately go right back to not listening. There were three in particular in the corner of the room that were causing the majority of the problems and I stopped and told them that I had enough and that if they didn't stop we were going to have a problem. Well one laughed as if I was joking, and I lost it. Directing my entire focus on him I started walking towards him asking if he thought that I was joking. I tried to get to him, but I was stopped by a desk that was blocking my path, which gave me enough time to stop myself from wanting to pick him up and throw him physically out the door. I stopped and told him that he was lucky that the desk was blocking me because I was going to hurt him. He got scared along with the rest of the class. They were perfect angels for the rest of the period. That night we had parent/teacher conferences and two of the three boys came with their parents. One looked as if he was going to cry when he sat down in front of me. He didn't know what I was going to say to his parents. I just looked at him in the eyes and said, "we had some problems today, didn't we?" He nodded in agreeance, and I responded, "but we aren't going to have something like that happen again, right?" And he said "no". Once that was over I turned to the parents and said, we have no problems now. And we haven't had any since.
I just feel that some of these kids just need to be told that enough is enough. They need someone who believes in them enough to expect them to be able to comprehend that their actions bring consequences.
Teaching is a difficult and thankless job. All of us have been in the role of the student, but not that many of us have been in the role of a teacher. This little adventure/mission that I am on is an eye opener for sure. It is interesting. I can't say that I yet feel a sense of accomplishment, but I can say that I am making progress. I am not only teaching my students, but some of the other teachers and paras come in and sit in my classes and take notes and learn from me as well.
I encourage everyone to reach out to a teacher and say thank you. It might just make their day.
Friday, October 9, 2015
What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
So back in March of this year (2015) I was sitting quietly in my office reflecting on what I needed to do that day when my wife shared with me some information that at the time seemed insignificant and irrelevant to my life, but little did I know that it would change my life and turn it completely upside down.
In order to put this in proper prospective let me go back in time a few months prior to March. In October of 2014 my wife came to me and told me that she was told about a part-time job at the school that my children went to, and she felt that she should apply for it.. She had been volunteering at the school doing essentially the same thing, but this would provide a little extra money for the family. She said that she felt strongly that she needed to do it. So we decided that she should go ahead and apply.
A few weeks later she got a call from another school in the District wanting her to come in for an interview. She went ahead and went to the interview and said that it was almost spiritual in nature. She then interviewed for the school that she originally intended to work for, and the feeling was completely different. There was a rather large contrast between the two schools and positions. The school that my children go to is near our home and in a nice area. The other school was located in the older portion of town with a high population of lower-income families and struggling students. The school is a Title-I school meaning that it receives additional federal funding to help re-mediate the students to help them reach benchmarks in their education. She was offered the job at the other school and needed to make a decision as to what she was going to do. After some thought and prayer she decided to go ahead and take the position. It was more hours than she was expecting or wanting to work, but she felt good about it. Besides I was home pretty much all the time anyway to watch our four year old son.
That was a long back-story to get to March. So my wife came home from work one day and told me that she had heard that a High School in the District was looking for a head baseball coach. We both had a good laugh at the thought of me applying for the job since the school was an hours drive from our home. I love baseball with a passion and that is why she felt it relevant to bring it up to me, but we both knew that I would not travel that far unless I was compensated for it.
After that day I just pushed it out of my mind and went about doing my work. Or, at least I thought that I had. Every once in awhile I would find myself thinking about it. I even got online to the School District's web site and looked up the job posting, during which time I found that there were two High Schools looking for a head coach. The other one was even farther in time and distance than the other one. For a few weeks I kept thinking about it and could not stop. Until one day I succumb and I applied for both positions. I thought to myself that I would at least talk to them if they had me come in and see what they were willing to pay me for my time and expertise in the realm of baseball. Not to mention I had a lot of free-time due to my business anyway, so why not.
A few months passed and I hadn't heard anything until one day as I was checking my email while watching a movie on Netflix in the middle of my work day I got an email from the school that was the farthest from my home. I responded and we were able to schedule a time for me to come in and interview.
The day arrived, and I made the long drive out to the barren waste known as Wendover, Utah. The school was so small that I didn't think that I could possibly be at the right place. The school was small, but the baseball field was huge. I went in and introduced myself, then began what I would call the oddest interview that I ever experienced.
It started out rather normal, talking about baseball and my experience as a player and a coach. Then came the question that changed the tone. I was asked what is it that I actually do that was prompting me to apply for a baseball position that would pay practically nothing. When I heard that it would pay hardly nothing, the interview was over in my mind. So I answered that I owned my own business, and that I was just looking for something to fill some of my free time and since I love baseball and have a lot to offer in that field I thought that I would at least go for it. A few more questions were answered concerning my background in business, and then the Principal blurted out, "You know what? I need a business teacher more than I need a baseball coach!". I was shocked and quickly responded that I was not looking at changing my career. I mean I was perfectly happy with my life, and if I got a job it wasn't going to be as a teacher. I tried to be polite in my decline of the thought, and he kept trying to sell the idea. He told me about the plight of the students, that they were predominately Hispanic (since I am Hispanic he was trying to get me to relate), and that they were struggling.
He went on to tell me that their teachers come and leave within a year leaving the kids without a real mentor to turn to, or someone to look to for an example. He told me that he could see me being the Principal within 5 years if I took the job. I kept giving a little push back and finally succumb and agreed to at least give it some thought and I promised to give him an answer by that Friday.
I left the school dazed and confused at what had just happened. I got on the phone and called my wife to tell her about it. She asked me what I thought about it and I told her that I wasn't really considering it. The prospect of me becoming a teacher was laughable in my mind. I didn't like teenagers to begin with, and I hate school. I mean when I was in school I did everything in my power not to go, as a teacher you have to be there, because it is your job. I kept thinking to myself, "No, not me".
The hour and a half drive home was forever long. There is absolutely nothing between my town and Wendover. My mind was racing, and I just wanted to get back home and be done with it, never to return to Wendover again.
When I finally arrived my wife was waiting for me and we talked a little about it. She had spoken to the people at her school and they all raved about the Principal of Wendover High School. He had been a teacher there before becoming an administrator and they had nothing but good to say about him. The thought of the possibility kept weighing heavily upon my mind that whole day. I was confused as to what it meant. So I did what I normally do when I feel confused and I prayed about it. Well, for someone who didn't want to do it, I should not have prayed about it because I felt that I needed to do it. I tried to deny the feeling and kept pushing it off, but I kept praying about it hoping that I would get another feeling. I hadn't told my wife about how I was feeling when she came to me a few days later and told me that she felt that I needed to do it, and that she felt like it wasn't a job that I was accepting but a mission call from the Lord. That through me for a loop and I sincerely prayed about it after hearing that and I accepted the feeling and made the decision to do it.
When I spoke to the Principal he was elated. He pretty much couldn't control himself. He told me that I would teach just a couple of classes and that I would be the Assistant Baseball Coach rather than the Head Coach since they needed someone right away and my hiring would be delayed due to the fact that I had to get approval from the State of Utah since I wasn't a licensed teacher.
I submitted my information and and waited. In about a month I received a response saying that the State was not going to approve my application to be a teacher. I breathed a sigh of relief and notified the Principal. Within 5 minutes I received a text telling me not to worry, but that he would see if there was something that he could do. Within a couple of hours he texted me to tell me that there was a another route and that everything was good. Well then began the headache of trying to get everything submitted to the District for submission.
Long-story short, after several back and forth communications everything was eventually approved and I was now looking at the reality of what I had done. I was now a High School Teacher. Even now the title gives me the chills. You see I've been an entrepreneur for many years and I've been running my business forever. I enjoyed being home with my family, and being there whenever they needed me. I liked being able to own my schedule and do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. I have a Master's degree in Management, and now I was going to be the low man on the totem pole with no chance of advancement in a world that I've never really cared for.
I've always been extremely critical of the public education system and its failures, and now I was going to be a part of the problem. I wasn't elated, but I was optimistic that I was going to have the opportunity to do some real good for the students of Wendover High School.
The time passed and I started preparing myself and my family for the change that was coming. We went on a nice family vacation and spent as much time together as we could. I trained my wife on what she needed to do for me to help keep the company operational and functioning while I was unable to do anything. I tried to do some lesson plans, but every time that I tried I got frustrated and didn't quite do it. The weekend before school started I was scrambling to get it done in order to have at least the first week ready for the start of school.
Then came the first day, D-day. I wasn't nervous or anxious I just wanted to get it done. I am the kind of person that doesn't like ramp up. I want a green-light, now jump scenario. So I was more tired of the crap by this point than anything else. First period came, and things went well. Each class seemed to go well and then the day was over. I went to baseball practice and got home late.
The next day word got back to me that the students that I had on the first-day of school loved my classes and some of the students asked not to be taken out of my classes when they were approached about scheduling conflicts. It was strange. I didn't think that I had done anything special, I had just been myself. The second day went pretty much the same way. I had the administrators coming to me telling me that they were already getting positive feedback on me from the students. As I would walk down the hallway at our little school kids would shout out my name and yell out our classroom word, even those who weren't in my classes.
Then came our first assembly at the end of the first week. I took my seat at the back of the bleachers and intended to settle myself in and bare the spectacle. I hated assemblies as a student and I doubly hate them as an adult. They had all the staff come down to be introduced to the student body, and so I started down when I heard someone call my name from the bleachers. I instinctively yelled out my classroom word of "Hooah!", and the whole student body erupted in reply. The Principal and some others looked at me in disbelief as the student body went absolutely nuts in a frenzied explosion. When they came to me in the introduction, the bleachers erupted yet again. When I was introduced as the Asst. Baseball Coach they erupted again. The cheerleaders stood there with confused looks on their faces because they hadn't been able to get the students that riled up to that point.
At the end of the assembly the Principal and one of the Instructor Coaches approached me in disbelief. They were shocked how after just one week the whole school loved me. I must admit I was pretty shocked myself. Like I said, I was just being myself.
We are now almost two months into the school year, and things are still looking good. I have some problems, but I address them quickly. I've told my students that they do not want to see Military Mr. Ramirez, and for the most part they live their lives trying to avoid it. On a few occasions they have seen partial military me, and they don't like it and they adjust their attitude. Except the 7th graders, they don't seem to get the concept that their behavior fuels the military me and they get the full brutal force of that side of me. I don't apologize, nor do I try and hide the fact that I make my students scared of me to listen and obey.
The purpose of this blog is to give me a medium where I can vent and share my feelings about this adventure and some of the stories that come along the way.
In order to put this in proper prospective let me go back in time a few months prior to March. In October of 2014 my wife came to me and told me that she was told about a part-time job at the school that my children went to, and she felt that she should apply for it.. She had been volunteering at the school doing essentially the same thing, but this would provide a little extra money for the family. She said that she felt strongly that she needed to do it. So we decided that she should go ahead and apply.
A few weeks later she got a call from another school in the District wanting her to come in for an interview. She went ahead and went to the interview and said that it was almost spiritual in nature. She then interviewed for the school that she originally intended to work for, and the feeling was completely different. There was a rather large contrast between the two schools and positions. The school that my children go to is near our home and in a nice area. The other school was located in the older portion of town with a high population of lower-income families and struggling students. The school is a Title-I school meaning that it receives additional federal funding to help re-mediate the students to help them reach benchmarks in their education. She was offered the job at the other school and needed to make a decision as to what she was going to do. After some thought and prayer she decided to go ahead and take the position. It was more hours than she was expecting or wanting to work, but she felt good about it. Besides I was home pretty much all the time anyway to watch our four year old son.
That was a long back-story to get to March. So my wife came home from work one day and told me that she had heard that a High School in the District was looking for a head baseball coach. We both had a good laugh at the thought of me applying for the job since the school was an hours drive from our home. I love baseball with a passion and that is why she felt it relevant to bring it up to me, but we both knew that I would not travel that far unless I was compensated for it.
After that day I just pushed it out of my mind and went about doing my work. Or, at least I thought that I had. Every once in awhile I would find myself thinking about it. I even got online to the School District's web site and looked up the job posting, during which time I found that there were two High Schools looking for a head coach. The other one was even farther in time and distance than the other one. For a few weeks I kept thinking about it and could not stop. Until one day I succumb and I applied for both positions. I thought to myself that I would at least talk to them if they had me come in and see what they were willing to pay me for my time and expertise in the realm of baseball. Not to mention I had a lot of free-time due to my business anyway, so why not.
A few months passed and I hadn't heard anything until one day as I was checking my email while watching a movie on Netflix in the middle of my work day I got an email from the school that was the farthest from my home. I responded and we were able to schedule a time for me to come in and interview.
The day arrived, and I made the long drive out to the barren waste known as Wendover, Utah. The school was so small that I didn't think that I could possibly be at the right place. The school was small, but the baseball field was huge. I went in and introduced myself, then began what I would call the oddest interview that I ever experienced.
It started out rather normal, talking about baseball and my experience as a player and a coach. Then came the question that changed the tone. I was asked what is it that I actually do that was prompting me to apply for a baseball position that would pay practically nothing. When I heard that it would pay hardly nothing, the interview was over in my mind. So I answered that I owned my own business, and that I was just looking for something to fill some of my free time and since I love baseball and have a lot to offer in that field I thought that I would at least go for it. A few more questions were answered concerning my background in business, and then the Principal blurted out, "You know what? I need a business teacher more than I need a baseball coach!". I was shocked and quickly responded that I was not looking at changing my career. I mean I was perfectly happy with my life, and if I got a job it wasn't going to be as a teacher. I tried to be polite in my decline of the thought, and he kept trying to sell the idea. He told me about the plight of the students, that they were predominately Hispanic (since I am Hispanic he was trying to get me to relate), and that they were struggling.
He went on to tell me that their teachers come and leave within a year leaving the kids without a real mentor to turn to, or someone to look to for an example. He told me that he could see me being the Principal within 5 years if I took the job. I kept giving a little push back and finally succumb and agreed to at least give it some thought and I promised to give him an answer by that Friday.
I left the school dazed and confused at what had just happened. I got on the phone and called my wife to tell her about it. She asked me what I thought about it and I told her that I wasn't really considering it. The prospect of me becoming a teacher was laughable in my mind. I didn't like teenagers to begin with, and I hate school. I mean when I was in school I did everything in my power not to go, as a teacher you have to be there, because it is your job. I kept thinking to myself, "No, not me".
The hour and a half drive home was forever long. There is absolutely nothing between my town and Wendover. My mind was racing, and I just wanted to get back home and be done with it, never to return to Wendover again.
When I finally arrived my wife was waiting for me and we talked a little about it. She had spoken to the people at her school and they all raved about the Principal of Wendover High School. He had been a teacher there before becoming an administrator and they had nothing but good to say about him. The thought of the possibility kept weighing heavily upon my mind that whole day. I was confused as to what it meant. So I did what I normally do when I feel confused and I prayed about it. Well, for someone who didn't want to do it, I should not have prayed about it because I felt that I needed to do it. I tried to deny the feeling and kept pushing it off, but I kept praying about it hoping that I would get another feeling. I hadn't told my wife about how I was feeling when she came to me a few days later and told me that she felt that I needed to do it, and that she felt like it wasn't a job that I was accepting but a mission call from the Lord. That through me for a loop and I sincerely prayed about it after hearing that and I accepted the feeling and made the decision to do it.
When I spoke to the Principal he was elated. He pretty much couldn't control himself. He told me that I would teach just a couple of classes and that I would be the Assistant Baseball Coach rather than the Head Coach since they needed someone right away and my hiring would be delayed due to the fact that I had to get approval from the State of Utah since I wasn't a licensed teacher.
I submitted my information and and waited. In about a month I received a response saying that the State was not going to approve my application to be a teacher. I breathed a sigh of relief and notified the Principal. Within 5 minutes I received a text telling me not to worry, but that he would see if there was something that he could do. Within a couple of hours he texted me to tell me that there was a another route and that everything was good. Well then began the headache of trying to get everything submitted to the District for submission.
Long-story short, after several back and forth communications everything was eventually approved and I was now looking at the reality of what I had done. I was now a High School Teacher. Even now the title gives me the chills. You see I've been an entrepreneur for many years and I've been running my business forever. I enjoyed being home with my family, and being there whenever they needed me. I liked being able to own my schedule and do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. I have a Master's degree in Management, and now I was going to be the low man on the totem pole with no chance of advancement in a world that I've never really cared for.
I've always been extremely critical of the public education system and its failures, and now I was going to be a part of the problem. I wasn't elated, but I was optimistic that I was going to have the opportunity to do some real good for the students of Wendover High School.
The time passed and I started preparing myself and my family for the change that was coming. We went on a nice family vacation and spent as much time together as we could. I trained my wife on what she needed to do for me to help keep the company operational and functioning while I was unable to do anything. I tried to do some lesson plans, but every time that I tried I got frustrated and didn't quite do it. The weekend before school started I was scrambling to get it done in order to have at least the first week ready for the start of school.
Then came the first day, D-day. I wasn't nervous or anxious I just wanted to get it done. I am the kind of person that doesn't like ramp up. I want a green-light, now jump scenario. So I was more tired of the crap by this point than anything else. First period came, and things went well. Each class seemed to go well and then the day was over. I went to baseball practice and got home late.
The next day word got back to me that the students that I had on the first-day of school loved my classes and some of the students asked not to be taken out of my classes when they were approached about scheduling conflicts. It was strange. I didn't think that I had done anything special, I had just been myself. The second day went pretty much the same way. I had the administrators coming to me telling me that they were already getting positive feedback on me from the students. As I would walk down the hallway at our little school kids would shout out my name and yell out our classroom word, even those who weren't in my classes.
Then came our first assembly at the end of the first week. I took my seat at the back of the bleachers and intended to settle myself in and bare the spectacle. I hated assemblies as a student and I doubly hate them as an adult. They had all the staff come down to be introduced to the student body, and so I started down when I heard someone call my name from the bleachers. I instinctively yelled out my classroom word of "Hooah!", and the whole student body erupted in reply. The Principal and some others looked at me in disbelief as the student body went absolutely nuts in a frenzied explosion. When they came to me in the introduction, the bleachers erupted yet again. When I was introduced as the Asst. Baseball Coach they erupted again. The cheerleaders stood there with confused looks on their faces because they hadn't been able to get the students that riled up to that point.
At the end of the assembly the Principal and one of the Instructor Coaches approached me in disbelief. They were shocked how after just one week the whole school loved me. I must admit I was pretty shocked myself. Like I said, I was just being myself.
We are now almost two months into the school year, and things are still looking good. I have some problems, but I address them quickly. I've told my students that they do not want to see Military Mr. Ramirez, and for the most part they live their lives trying to avoid it. On a few occasions they have seen partial military me, and they don't like it and they adjust their attitude. Except the 7th graders, they don't seem to get the concept that their behavior fuels the military me and they get the full brutal force of that side of me. I don't apologize, nor do I try and hide the fact that I make my students scared of me to listen and obey.
The purpose of this blog is to give me a medium where I can vent and share my feelings about this adventure and some of the stories that come along the way.
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